


In the darkest hour

by songsaboutdrowning



Category: Florence + the Machine
Genre: F/F, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-11-18
Updated: 2012-11-18
Packaged: 2017-11-19 10:30:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,436
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/572310
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/songsaboutdrowning/pseuds/songsaboutdrowning
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She's in bed with someone but she's thinking of somebody else...</p>
            </blockquote>





	In the darkest hour

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this on a sleepless October night when I was just feeling extremely destructive. Then the next day I wrote the conclusion and it just went in a completely different direction than I was expecting, but it made sense so I left it like that. Hope you enjoy… x

He is on top of her and inside her and all around her and through half closed eyes she is looking up at him but her vision wavers, stopping on the old fashioned lamp in the corner, the window with the long curtains, the city lights outside the room.

Her thoughts wander, like they have with faultless regularity lately, thoughts she hasn’t been able to put a name to, but they have a face, these thoughts, they have big eyes that hide behind coloured lenses, they have bleached blonde hair and a small, slight body and a musical, warm voice.

He thrusts into her and once again she can’t stop the thoughts and it’s Isa she sees in her mind’s eye, what she’s feeling are her fingers, strategically curved upwards to hit the right spot, and she blocks out the noise and shuts her eyes real tight, and somehow this seems to work.

Her body tenses, responds, her moans grow louder and she’s on the edge of coming, except when she finally does, the words that leave her mouth are, “Oh god, Isa -”

He stops immediately. Her eyelids fly open in shock, but she can’t take it back. She can’t take the name back or the fact that her mind was somewhere else altogether. That although she was physically in the room, mentally she couldn’t have been farther away from him.

He looks down at her, accuses, “What did you say?”

It’s a rhetorical question. He knows full well what he’s heard; knows what it means.

“Are you telling me that while we fuck you’re picturing your best friend instead of me?”

Other guys may feel flattered or aroused at the idea, at their woman expressing desire for another woman. Other guys suggest threesomes or ask to watch, but not him. He just looks disappointed, disgusted almost, and he’s already pulled out and put half his clothes back on.

Florence’s hand is on her face and she feels the shame claw at the inside of her stomach, wanting to come out. Lots of people have fantasies during sex. Few are so stupid as to accidentally verbalise them.

Few probably have fantasies about someone who is currently sleeping in a room two doors down the same hotel corridor, as well. Maybe those people would just take matters into their own hands and knock on said door, confess their feelings. But not Florence.

Florence has kept this bottled up for a few weeks now, and she just lets the sobs take over; the tears are almost welcome; their warmth on her face feels like company compared to the loneliness she feels right at her very core.

He asks, “Have you actually been sleeping with Isa?”

She shakes her head. Her eyes stay resolutely closed.

She doesn’t even attempt to stop him; maybe this accident is what she needed to get out of this relationship. Normal people, people with guts and a conscience, talk about their problems. But not Florence. She lets things bottle up and then the wrong name slips out.

Something kicks in: propriety, convention. She is supposed to beg him, she is supposed to ask him to stay, and so she does. She says “No, don’t go,” and she knows that she can be a convincing actress, but she really must have wounded his pride, because he walks out saying, “Have a good life, Florence,” and she is relieved, actually, like a huge weight has been lifted off her chest.

She still cries, though: the humiliation is unprecedented. She’s sure it’s happened to other people and maybe they were able to laugh about it, but to her, it’s brought a problem to the surface that she’s been trying to suppress for so long.

It wasn’t the first time that she was thinking about _her_ : just the first time she got busted. And probably the last, at least for a little while. She knows better than to enter another relationship any time soon: the thoughts just kind of surprised her while she was stuck in one and no matter how much she tried, they just wouldn’t go away. It’s not that she wasn’t in the moment, she _was_ : just with another person, someone in her imagination.

And the sad thing is, in all the desperation, in the emptiness she feels inside, her first impulse is still to reach for the phone and dial Isa’s room number.

“Hello?” Her voice sounds pasty, half-asleep. Isa knows that the only person who would ever call her on the room phone is Florence.

Florence takes a breath, but she doesn’t find any words that are suitable to her predicament. She doesn’t need to, though: Isa picks up on her erratic breathing straight away.

“Flo, are you crying? What the hell happened?”

Finally, her voice comes back, it’s strangled, and wispy, but she does say “Can you come over please? Or can I come to you?”

“Yeah, of course, Flo, yeah. Are you ok? I’ll be two minutes.”

Isa takes the gamble of leaving her hotel room in her pyjamas. She only has to go a little ways down a corridor anyway. It feels stupid to get changed when the situation seems to be quite urgent. Florence hasn’t had a breakdown in a while, and last she knew, she was spending the night with James.

She has a copy of Flo’s room key. She always does – in case Florence forgets or loses hers. It comes in handy since she doesn’t think Flo is in a condition to get out of bed or even move. She knows these breakdowns well.

Even so, she’s not quite prepared for the sight that welcomes her. Florence is half on, half off the bed, clothed only in a wrinkly blouse and see-through knickers. It’s nothing Isa hasn’t seen before, but there is a vulnerability there that always makes her feel blind panic – will she be able to rescue Florence this time?

Flo’s hands cover her face, strands of her thick fringe poking out from between her fingers; sensing Isa’s presence, she lets go even more, and the subtle sobs that shake her ribcage turn into helpless wails and gasps for air.

Isa climbs on the bed delicately, whispering soothing “Hey, hey, hey”s as her hand rests on top of Flo’s and tries to pry her fingers away from her face. Florence takes one look at her and thinks this is suicidal, seeking out help from the very person who is the cause of her entire problem.

They’re friends, yes, but this falls under the category of too much information and she doesn’t know how to explain what happened; they’ve never shared too many details about their sex lives, for some weird reason: it’s maybe an odd form of mutual respect and, at least for Florence, just another way of keeping the fantasies at bay.

So when Isa pulls on the hand she’s holding, and forces Florence to roll onto her side and face her, crying harder is the only way Flo has to get out of having to talk.

“It’s alright,” Isa whispers; she looks dead serious, even her voice can’t contain her concern, and it ends up shaking. “Flo, please. Florence,” the full name would generally make her snap to attention like a kid who’s being told off, “tell me what happened, I’m here.”

Florence pouts; her eyes are bloodshot from crying and it’s like the only feeling she has left, out of all her nerve endings, is that small spot where Isa’s thumb is wiping away a gigantic tear.

“Come on, Flo. I’m here now. Talk to me.”

Her voice is level and so soothing and Florence wants to pour her heart out but she knows she can’t.

“I made a complete fool of myself,” she says; it takes a few attempts for her to actually be able to formulate a whole sentence. “During sex,” she adds.

Isa starts thinking maybe the problem is not as big as Florence makes it seem – which is typical Florence, really – but then comes the conclusion, “I said someone else’s name during sex.”

If this was any of her other friends, they would probably laugh about it, but Florence is clearly distraught, and the fact she was alone in the room suggests that James didn’t take it too well, either.

“Where’s he gone now?” she asks, and her hand has returned to Florence’s waist in what’s almost a lover’s gesture. But she has no time to reflect that, really, she wouldn’t touch any of her other friends this way.

“He left. He’s not coming back, I don’t think.”

Flo’s breathing has slowed down to what’s almost a normal rhythm, although fresh tears keep rolling out of her eyes with each blink of her eyelids. Isa establishes that she’s upset because of the breakup, and at the end of the day, it _is_ a pretty shitty way to end a relationship with someone. They’d been together a good few months, no wonder Florence feels like she’s ruined everything.

It surprises her when Florence offers more information, unprompted.  
  
“It was a girl’s name,” she says, and she looks straight into Isa’s grey eyes, thinking _I dare you to figure out it was yours._

Isa doesn’t take the bait; instead she wonders briefly if James thought Florence was some kind of ingénue whose fantasies stopped at missionary with the lights _on_. If Isa knows Flo has slept with girls, then why doesn’t James? Then again, maybe he’s just bothered that he wasn’t at the centre of Florence’s thoughts. Isa would be too, in his position. Thinking Florence wants you and realising she wants someone else _more_ must be pretty devastating.

“I don’t think that matters,” is the only comeback Isa can think of that sounds neutral and wise enough. Right now, what matters is to get Flo to calm down and get some rest. Isa tightens her hold on her, only to realise that Flo should probably change before she attempts sleep. Change and move on, break free from the awkward and the heartache, let the night take her worries.

“Do you want to take a quick shower? A bath?” Isa inquires, thinking she’s probably going to have to accompany Florence because right now she looks so out of it she might pass out from the heat.

“That’s probably a good idea,” Florence says. She needs to wash away the guilt. In the most clichéd of ways, she feels dirty from her unfinished night with James and right now, any trace of him on her skin makes her disgusted more than anything else.

Slowly, through the pounding in her head, she rolls onto her back, swings her legs over the side of the bed, and rises unsteadily. Isa sits up, following her every move.

“Do you need help?” she asks, biting her bottom lip, like there’s something she’s not saying.

Florence can’t shake her head – it’s spinning enough as it is – but she actually needs some alone time to recoup. What does she tell Isa now, if she asks something a little too personal? If she asks whose name it was? If it was a one-off? Going to Isabella is always Florence’s gut reaction, but now she wants to run away, or at the very least formulate a plan.

“Will you still be here when I get back?”

“Where else would I be?”, Isa responds, and from her sigh, Florence doesn’t understand if she’s annoyed or something else.

=

She takes off her blouse and knickers and chucks them on the floor. On second thought, she grabs the knickers again and throws them into the bin under the sink – not the blouse, that cost her a fortune. She only showers for a couple of minutes, but she cranks up the heat and inhales the vapour, and when she comes out, she feels reborn.

She did try not to get her hair too wet, but the tips are trickling slightly as she puts on the standard white hotel bathrobe and steps out into the bedroom.

Isa has retreated against the headboard and is sitting with her knees up, disappearing in the oversized shirt she sleeps in, biting on her thumb nervously like she thought Flo wouldn’t come out alive. Isa expects her to say something, but Florence just walks barefoot to her suitcase, from which she extracts silk pyjamas.

She takes off the bathrobe, exposing her bare back to Isabella without a hint of worry. It’s nothing that hasn’t happened before, after all. Isa doesn’t seem as unaffected; she gulps, but not loud enough that Florence can hear her, and frankly, relieved that Florence can’t _see_ her. The garment ends up in a lump on the back of a chair as Flo slips on her pyjamas, still not saying a word.

Florence walks around the bed and her stomach lurches thinking she’s going to have to spend the night in the same bed where she was having sex with James, right before everything went wrong. For a moment, she considers asking Isa if they can move to her room, but it seems like too much effort.

She lifts the covers; Isa shuffles back to make room for her, and then slips under the quilt herself.

“Feeling better?” she asks, since Florence isn’t forthcoming with words.

Flo’s head feels a little clearer. She’s still guilty for making James feel undesired, but she keeps telling herself, it’s for the better. It’s for the better. The thoughts had taken over her life. Now, at least, she can succumb to them without feeling like she’s cheating. They can just pull her down into an abyss of unrequited desire, and she will let them. And the fantasy will consume her with its impossibility, that is until one day she drinks too much and decides to attempt it in real life.

Isa’s hand returns to her waist in a way Florence likes to believe is possessive. She reciprocates the gesture, wishing Isa’s shirt was short enough that she could slip her hand underneath it and feel the warmth of her skin, feel her ribcage move up and down with the regularity of sleep.

Almost as consolation, their faces are really close, in fact their noses are touching, and their breaths are mixing together into one; two more inches and they would be kissing.

The spiralling thoughts start again and Florence closes her eyes and braces herself.

“Goodnight,” she murmurs as the images escalate in quick succession behind her eyelids.

Blissfully unaware, Isa says goodnight back, and Florence remembers to thank her before giving in completely to her darkest secret. 

**Author's Note:**

> There is now a sequel to this story called "Morning Lights" at [this](http://archiveofourown.org/works/637384) address.


End file.
